Almost always, the holiday season will lead me to some interesting thought process or realization about life or about myself. Late nights after full days, lots of activity and events, and - perhaps most importantly - lots of interaction with my brothers and immediate family and hangers-on, nearly all of whom are intelligent, dynamic, capable, thoughtful, and slightly insane. It's a good bunch, and this year we had a good time reciting movie lines (lots of Willow, Major Payne, and Waiting), paintballing, shooting, sledding, drinking, and putting together toys soldiers (theoretically for Adam's son Corbin, but realisitally for our use as well). That Adam's spawn has grown to the point of participating in some of these activities has added a whole new dimension to the festivities. Really gets my mind working, almost always with interesting results. After this year, I no longer feel the need to get Corbin a drum set, since Adam is already destined for a lot of grief, even without my intervention. I can hardly wait for his daughter to start giving him headaches. As studdorn and energetic as Corbin is, you can already see that Adam is DEFINATELY going to have his hands full with Callie. She's one of those people that thinks it's amusing to make people mad. She's going to turn two in a few months.
So we were all up in Oregon, and were joined by an Australian girl named Shelly, who's friends with my mom from when they were both traveling through Mongolia a few years back (no, I'm not joking). Mom was thinking that she and I might get along, and we did. Chemestry, but no spark, if you know what I mean. Spending time around them and being involved (and/or relied up to make things happen) led to some intersting thought about male/famale relations, including a debunking of some of the critical points of Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus. Not quite sure how I'm going to fit it into The Rules, but I'm sure I'll think of something.
I also reached the conclusion that my job is responsible for my recent bouts of irritability and related symptoms. (Road rage, insomnia, etc. But not alcoholism. That's not a problem. Beer is good for you.) Not the litigation thing. I like that part, and would be bored without the contentiousness. It's the discovery part that I can't fucking stand. I'm thinking about trying to get into an appellate-based practice; law and motion. All the contentiousness, but from an intellectual angle, rather than spending most of my time trying to wring information out of douchebags who know that the law requires them to tell the truth and give it to me, but who choose not to do it anyway. It's so fucking dumb, especially since their lies and half-truths don't change a damn thing, except causing me a lot of extra work in proving them to be lying, and making them wish they'd told the truth in the first place. I have one case where a guy is asserting neck and back pains, which he says were caused by a slip and fall. He said under oath at depostion that prior to the fall, his neck and back were symptom free, and that some past problems aside (minor to start with and since resolved), his neck was fine. He was relying on the fact that most of his medical records were destroyed when Katrina knocked over a few hospitals. He was depending on me not finding the medical and worker's compensation records showing another, prior slip and fall, which resulted in severe neck problems, surgical intervention, and a finding of 10% permanant whole-body impairment from that prior incident. He must honestly have believed that we weren't going to catch him lying. Whoops. But in any rate, proving people to be lying douchebags who don't deserve a dime is really not as fun and novel as it once was, so it's about time for a change.
Finally, as a result of Shelly being there and interacting with all of us over Christman, I realized one of the critical criteria that must be met by whoever it is that I might eventually marry: she needs to like me more than she likes my brother.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Thursday, December 18, 2008
The Amazing Cinematograph!
As anyone who reads here should have gathered, I am a HUGE fan of the cinema as expression of American culture and human emotion. I own a projector that can turn the largest wall in my house into a movie screen (not HD - yet - but definitely regular TV quality). I own about 300 DVDs, nearly every one of them a classic in some way or form, even if only in my opinion. I love considering the details and implications of movies and plot lines and character twists.
I could talk movies all day.
But I really don't go to the movies all that often. These days, a ticket to a movie will cost you $10, more if you go to an IMAX theater, and the truth of the matter is that there are damn few movies that are worth the admission price. The last movie I saw in a theater was 'Hancock,' which was marginally worth the ticket price, largely based on Will Smith's performance (infra). Before that was 'The Dark Knight,' which was also worth every penny. Hell, I would have paid $50 for that, in hindsight. For any poor souls who haven't yet seen it, Heath Ledger as the Joker really is as spectacular as everyone says he is. It's not just talk puffing the guy up posthumously; 'Dark Knight' is a Batman movie, but you spend most of it waiting for the next scene that has the crazy nut-job on the screen. Some of his commentaries about the nature of humanity and insanity also strike near to my own heart, but that's a post for another time.
So the movies have been good to me lately, but only in small doses; most of my movie watching happens on a small screen, with movies that I pay $3 on average to own on DVD (pawn shops are booming right now; great movie selections). In plowing through essentially every movie that I can find, I am occasionally struck by scenes or (more rarely) entire movies that strike me as utterly brilliant. More often, I'm disappointed, but the brilliance is there to be found. Sometimes.
This week, I bought a copy of 'I am Legend.' It was on sale at my local Vons when I was out stocking up on Cab for pending Future-Ex-Wife visits. So I grabbed it, and watched it. Honestly, I probably should have seen if before now, since I like those sorts of post-apocalyptic scenarios. But I got around to it. It was snowing here in Vegas this week (no, I'm not kidding), so being housebound with a new movie, some excellent porn, and non-prescription intoxicants seemed like the right thing to do. So I got fucked up on Monday night, and watched 'I am Legend.'
Let me first say that I am very glad that I did not pay to see it in a theater. Not because it wouldn't have been worth it, but because I would have had to leave. When Will Smith is sitting on the floor of his laboratory with the injured Sam on his lap, and he starts singing Bob Marley, I wouldn't have been able to stay, because I knew what was coming. In terms of the direction and action, the scene simply could not have been better, but I couldn't have handled it in a public place.
'I am Legend' is not about the post-apocalyptic world, or about vampires, or a search for a cure. It's about solitude. Which is something most people really don't understand very well. People today - for the most part - spend hardly any time at all alone, and almost always out of choice. Should you feel the sudden need for interaction, all you have to do is step out the door, and traffic will be going by. Our world is full, and so the only people who spend enough time alone to really know how bad bad can get are social pariahs. And even they can get social interaction, so long as they are willing to bear the abuse.
But put yourself in Robert Neville's position. You haven't seen or talked to another human being in almost three years. You broadcast your position to the world every day on every AM frequency, and have gotten no response (the propagation of AM radio waves means that they travel much further than FM bands - although more sporadically - based on the way they each interact with earth's atmosphere). All of your effects to find any sort of cure have failed, coincidentally resulting in the death of thousands of rats and dozens of tacit 'people.' Your birthday was yesterday. Over the course of it, you found one of you mannequins (Fred) moved all the way across town by some unknown party, probably one of the monsters you hide from every night. You get caught in a trap, and probably get a concussion in the process. You stab yourself in the leg (badly). You get attacked by rabid dogs.
And then you have to strangle the only companion you have had for the last three years: the Shepperd your daughter gave you just moments before her own death. You have to. You can't let her go out to be with the other infected, since she knows where you live, and will lead them to you, if only by barking and snarling at your door all night. You can't keep her caged as a wild animal; she's your only friend. You can't even follow where she's going, since you're immune. She is the only living thing in your entire world that doesn't either flee at your approach or try to kill you on sight. And the only real choice is to kill her.
And then there you are. Where the only live voice of man or dog you expect to hear for the rest of your life will be the howls of things that want desperately to kill you and devour your flesh. When he set his trap out at the pier and started killing the infected with his truck, yes, he was out there intending to kill as many of them as he could. But he was also, unquestionably and absolutely, intending to get killed by them as well.
The rest of the movie took some turns that I would have handled differently as a writer/director, but both the cinematic ending and the unreleased ending were both good. Although truth be told, the unreleased ending hit a hell of a lot harder than the theatrical version. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you, but take a good look at Will Smith's face (I really like him, by the way) when he looks up at all the polaroids.
It was a good movie. And some of the extra features were... Disturbing. Not quite "Silent Hill" disturbing (still the reigning champ), but up there.
I could talk movies all day.
But I really don't go to the movies all that often. These days, a ticket to a movie will cost you $10, more if you go to an IMAX theater, and the truth of the matter is that there are damn few movies that are worth the admission price. The last movie I saw in a theater was 'Hancock,' which was marginally worth the ticket price, largely based on Will Smith's performance (infra). Before that was 'The Dark Knight,' which was also worth every penny. Hell, I would have paid $50 for that, in hindsight. For any poor souls who haven't yet seen it, Heath Ledger as the Joker really is as spectacular as everyone says he is. It's not just talk puffing the guy up posthumously; 'Dark Knight' is a Batman movie, but you spend most of it waiting for the next scene that has the crazy nut-job on the screen. Some of his commentaries about the nature of humanity and insanity also strike near to my own heart, but that's a post for another time.
So the movies have been good to me lately, but only in small doses; most of my movie watching happens on a small screen, with movies that I pay $3 on average to own on DVD (pawn shops are booming right now; great movie selections). In plowing through essentially every movie that I can find, I am occasionally struck by scenes or (more rarely) entire movies that strike me as utterly brilliant. More often, I'm disappointed, but the brilliance is there to be found. Sometimes.
This week, I bought a copy of 'I am Legend.' It was on sale at my local Vons when I was out stocking up on Cab for pending Future-Ex-Wife visits. So I grabbed it, and watched it. Honestly, I probably should have seen if before now, since I like those sorts of post-apocalyptic scenarios. But I got around to it. It was snowing here in Vegas this week (no, I'm not kidding), so being housebound with a new movie, some excellent porn, and non-prescription intoxicants seemed like the right thing to do. So I got fucked up on Monday night, and watched 'I am Legend.'
Let me first say that I am very glad that I did not pay to see it in a theater. Not because it wouldn't have been worth it, but because I would have had to leave. When Will Smith is sitting on the floor of his laboratory with the injured Sam on his lap, and he starts singing Bob Marley, I wouldn't have been able to stay, because I knew what was coming. In terms of the direction and action, the scene simply could not have been better, but I couldn't have handled it in a public place.
'I am Legend' is not about the post-apocalyptic world, or about vampires, or a search for a cure. It's about solitude. Which is something most people really don't understand very well. People today - for the most part - spend hardly any time at all alone, and almost always out of choice. Should you feel the sudden need for interaction, all you have to do is step out the door, and traffic will be going by. Our world is full, and so the only people who spend enough time alone to really know how bad bad can get are social pariahs. And even they can get social interaction, so long as they are willing to bear the abuse.
But put yourself in Robert Neville's position. You haven't seen or talked to another human being in almost three years. You broadcast your position to the world every day on every AM frequency, and have gotten no response (the propagation of AM radio waves means that they travel much further than FM bands - although more sporadically - based on the way they each interact with earth's atmosphere). All of your effects to find any sort of cure have failed, coincidentally resulting in the death of thousands of rats and dozens of tacit 'people.' Your birthday was yesterday. Over the course of it, you found one of you mannequins (Fred) moved all the way across town by some unknown party, probably one of the monsters you hide from every night. You get caught in a trap, and probably get a concussion in the process. You stab yourself in the leg (badly). You get attacked by rabid dogs.
And then you have to strangle the only companion you have had for the last three years: the Shepperd your daughter gave you just moments before her own death. You have to. You can't let her go out to be with the other infected, since she knows where you live, and will lead them to you, if only by barking and snarling at your door all night. You can't keep her caged as a wild animal; she's your only friend. You can't even follow where she's going, since you're immune. She is the only living thing in your entire world that doesn't either flee at your approach or try to kill you on sight. And the only real choice is to kill her.
And then there you are. Where the only live voice of man or dog you expect to hear for the rest of your life will be the howls of things that want desperately to kill you and devour your flesh. When he set his trap out at the pier and started killing the infected with his truck, yes, he was out there intending to kill as many of them as he could. But he was also, unquestionably and absolutely, intending to get killed by them as well.
The rest of the movie took some turns that I would have handled differently as a writer/director, but both the cinematic ending and the unreleased ending were both good. Although truth be told, the unreleased ending hit a hell of a lot harder than the theatrical version. If you haven't seen it, I won't ruin it for you, but take a good look at Will Smith's face (I really like him, by the way) when he looks up at all the polaroids.
It was a good movie. And some of the extra features were... Disturbing. Not quite "Silent Hill" disturbing (still the reigning champ), but up there.
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